Silver and Green
by Oktavia Stormborn
Summary: It is our choices that save us or damn us. Cassia Black, over the years


Silver and Green

1959-1960

Cassia Black is born at 5 in the afternoon in late July to Oriana Black. Her cousins Bellarion, Antares and little Narcissus are so entranced with their new cousin that they spend every free moment at the gathering hovering over the cradle and have to be shooed off by their mother, who tells them the baby needs to sleep.

The next year, Régine is born and Bellarion abruptly switches his attention over to the newcomer, explaining it away with "She doesn't interest me anymore". Antares and Narcissus still spend time with little Cassia, letting her toddle after them until they become exhausted, causing her to bump into the back of their legs, fall down and start crying, prompting a house-elf to appear and take her away and take care of her until she stopped crying.

1971

Cassia Black leans out of the window of the Hogwarts Express, waving goodbye to her parents as she heads to Hogwarts for the first time. Régine chases after the train until the end of the platform, waving and shouting after her sister to send her presents as the train pulls out. As soon as the train pulls out of the station, she heads over to the compartment where Antares and Narcissus sit with the rest of the Slytherins, passing through a compartment that holds a dark haired girl, a mousy one and a girl with light brown hair. The dark haired one looks at her, leaps out of her seat and extends Cassia a hand of friendship. Cassia looks the girl, who calls herself Jamie, and her friends Roma and Pearl up and down and rejects the offer of friendship with "I don't make friends with Mudbloods and Muggle lovers". Jamie's amiable expression abruptly turns to a nasty glare and she jerks her hand away, sitting down as Roma tries to calm her friend down, prompting a sneer from Cassia, who then saunters down to the compartment where Antares and Narcissus have set up court.

As soon as the Sorting Hat touches her head, the bellowed "SLYTHERIN!" resounds throughout the hall, resulting in the entire hall falling silent save the Slytherins, who start clapping as she strides over to the Slytherin table. When she sits down next to Antares and Narcissus, she is greeted by pats on the back and handshakes by the rest of the table before turning to sneer at the Gryffindor table, where Jamie has set up court. Jamie meets her eyes and narrows her eyes in response, eliciting a laugh from Cassia, who quickly gets bored of the staring contest and turns to talk to Lucia Malfoy, feeling Jamie's stare burn at her back (but she doesn't really care).

1972-1977

Régine gets sorted into Ravenclaw to the surprise of her sister and cousins, who'd expected her to end up in Slytherin (their parents are a different matter altogether). She catches Régine in the hallway and tells her not to make their parents proud by not associating with mudbloods, muggle lovers or half-bloods (Rég will later learn otherwise) and then walks off to the dungeons, followed by her little group of girls. Bell runs away from home that year, having had enough with his family's views toward muggleborns and half-bloods, prompting Walburgh to blast his name off the family tree (his sister gets blasted off later for giving Bell enough money to buy his own place and live comfortably for a while). In the aftermath of Bell's running away, Cassia takes vengeance on the Gryffindors for corrupting her cousin with their half-cocked ideas (she gets the most detentions that year, but doesn't regret a thing).

Antares marries Antonia Dolohov and moves into one of the mansions that the Blacks own, while Narcissus starts dating Lucia Malfoy, all of them having graduated by the time Cassia reaches fourth year. Cassia begins dating Evan Rosier midway through her fourth year, earning her the ire of her little clique, most of whom wanted to date Evan themselves. Her parents are pleased with her choice and make it known by sending her a letter of approval. Régine begins to date Abhay Patil, a halfblood, halfway through her third year, earning herself a slap from her older sister when she finds out, who then starts ranting at her about how she's disgracing the family by associating with a half-blood before she earns herself a detention for airing out family laundry in public. The rest of their family is about forgiving as Cassia is, viciously deriding her choice of boyfriend by sending her a Howler the next morning at breakfast.

The first stirrings of what would be later be known as the First Wizarding War were felt as early as 1975, with several Muggle families disappearing during this period without any warning. Cassia meets the woman calling herself Lady Acheron when she visits Grimmauld Place to talk to Cassia's parents about her ideologies. She's so taken in by her charisma and the ardor with which she plies her platform that she decides to join her cause when she graduates from Hogwarts. When she returns to Hogwarts in the fall, the main topic of gossip in the halls centers around the disappearances that have been taking place all over England. When she goes home for Christmas, she finds out that Antares and Narcissus' wives have joined the Death Eaters from her father. More disappearances herald the start of 1976 outside of Hogwarts. Inside Hogwarts, Cassia wages her own private war against Jamie Potter and her little gaggle of friends, hexing them at the most opportune of moments (Jamie retaliates more often than not, earning herself many detentions), subtly, of course. She starts learning the Dark Arts like the rest of her housemates so she can join the Dark Lady's cause when she graduates from Hogwarts.

1978

It's Cassia's idea to join the ranks of the Death Eaters, partially because she knows it would make her family happy, but mostly because her fiancé is already a Death Eater himself. She becomes one of the Dark Lady's youngest Death Eaters, much to the delight of her father, who shows her off at every pureblood gathering. Her first mission from the Dark Lady is to take out an Order member who has been tailing Lucia Malfoy and Antonia Dolohov, trying to find the Death Eaters' center of operations. She apparates over to Hogsmeade and catches him off guard outside Madam Puddifoot's, observing Lucia and Antonia. She snarls a curse at the Order member, who hears it coming, turns and deflects it with a well placed Shield Charm. When she gets a look at his face, her eyes widen behind her mask and she lowers her wand in shock, giving him a chance to fire off a curse at her. She brings up a Shield Charm, deflects the worst of the curse, but has her mask shattered by the reduced potency curse, causing the Order member to stare at her in shock which turns to undisguised hatred, as she realizes Bell is staring at her from across the square. She takes advantage of his distraction to fire off an Avada Kedavra at him, but he sees it coming and Apparates out of Hogsmeade, much to her dismay.

Régine runs away from home after a vicious row with her father concerning her half-blood boyfriend and is blasted off the family tree shortly afterwards. The next few weeks are particularly taxing for Cassia, since she has to take care of the sympathetic callers that come to visit Grimmauld Place by herself since her parents decided to make themselves indisposed and her husband is off on an important mission for the Dark Lady. Antares and Narcissus drop by a few days after the last guest leaves and pay Cassia a visit to see how she's taking her sister's departure. She breaks down for the first and last time after they go up to her room to reminisce about their days at Hogwarts, sobbing uncontrollably into Antares' shoulder about how she misses her sister while he gently strokes her hair.

1979

She sends an invitation to Bellarion telling him that she's getting married in a week, but she doesn't receive any reply from him and so she resolves to meet him after the wedding ceremony in his house. The wedding of Cassia Black and Evan Rosier is such a massive affair that all the important pureblood families attend it. Régine brings her boyfriend to the wedding at the behest of her sister, much to the chagrin of the assembled purebloods and the disgust of her parents. The wedding goes off spectacularly, with Cassia Black becoming Cassia Rosier. After the wedding, she apparates over to Bell's house and knocks on the door, only to be greeted by a red headed woman. When she tells the woman that she's Bell's cousin, the woman tells her to come in and make herself at home, then calls for Bell. When Bell comes down out of his room and sees Cassia, the expression on his face makes her initially step back a pace before she tells him that her parents don't know that she came to visit him. He narrows his eyes in suspicion before telling her to get out of his house. She tries to tell him that she came as a friendly gesture, but he draws his wand and tells her to get out because he won't have Death Eater trash in his house. The red-headed woman, who's standing just outside the kitchen, lets out a little gasp of horror before bringing her hand up to cover her mouth and sinks to her knees. She sneers at her cousin in response, before apparating out of his house.

1980

She quickly gains a reputation for becoming the Dark Lady's most ruthless Death Eater, being directly involved in several massacres, the most infamous being the Diagon Alley massacre, in which she killed 1 Auror, 2 Hit-Wizards and 10 muggles. She encounters Bell a few times on missions for the Dark Lady, and unsuccessfully tries to kill him each time she sees him (she comes dangerously close once). On the next mission she goes on with her husband, Lucia, Antonia, Augustina Rookwood and the Lestrange sisters, she runs into the red-headed woman she saw at Bell's house and her sister and personally kills her after a long duel, while Rodolpha Lestrange kills her sister (Bell swears bloody vengeance on Cassia for killing his wife). She becomes pregnant in May and stops going on missions for the Dark Lady, who isn't exactly pleased, but permits her to do so. Evan, on the other hand, is both ecstatic that they're having a child and fearful because the environment they're living in right now isn't the best environment to raise a child in.

1981

She gives birth to a daughter, Adrienne Rosier, at 9 in the morning on January 23. Her parents are excited over the fact that they have a granddaughter to dote on and to teach the ways of purebloods to. She remains at home for several weeks, regaining her strength and energy from the difficult birth before dropping her daughter off at Antares' house before going off to meet with the Dark Lady for her next mission. The mission that the Dark Lady sends her, her husband, Yaxley, the Lestrange sisters and Thora Rowle on requires them to take out the headquarters of the Order. They get there without running into any Aurors or Order members, making Rodolpha uneasy with how easy this mission is. They've dismantled half the wards around the headquarters before a mix of two dozen Order members and Aurors apparate in and attack them.

Yaxley goes down first from a Full Body-Bind curse, followed by Rowle with a Leg-Locker curse. The rest of them start apparating out, but not without more casualties. Lucia is hit by a Severing charm in the leg and Cassia gets hit in the chest with Sectumsempra (Bell gets his vengeance against the murderer of his wife), while the Lestrange sisters and Evan Rosier get out unharmed. When Cassia gets back to headquarters, she collapses to the floor, blood flowing from the deep cuts on her chest. Evan screams and rushes over to his wife, yelling for a healer to come staunch the blood flow. She convulsively grabs his collar even as a gout of blood bursts free from her mouth to dribble down her chin before telling him to take care of their daughter before passing away on the floor of Riddle Manor as Evan howls in utter despair, clutching his wife's body to his own (Evan gets killed by Alastor Moody a few months later after the fall of the Dark Lady, joining his wife in death and leaving their daughter an orphan).

Antares sends invitations to Bellarion, Narcissus and Régine, asking them to attend the funeral. Bellarion and Régine initially don't respond to the invitations, prompting him to pay a visit to their house. Bellarion's house is his first stop, but when he apparates there and knocks on the door, he sees the lights are off and turns to leave, but is stopped by the noise of the door opening and instinctively turns around, wand ready, to see a pale, unshaven and haggard looking Bellarion staring out at him. He steps inside and flicks on the lights as Bell closes the door behind him before asking Bell if he wants to come to Cassia's funeral. Bell breaks out into a savage grin before telling Antares that no, he won't come to her funeral because he's the one who killed her as revenge for Cassia killing his wife. He then gestures over to the mantelpiece, where a couple of pictures reside. Antares goes over to look at the pictures and sees a pretty red-headed woman doing various activities with Bell before looking back at his brother, who'd walked over and started crying. He pats his brother's back the same way he did to Cassia after Régine ran away from home to be with her boyfriend before walking out of the house and apparates over to Régine's house.

Regine's house is located in a well-to-do section of London. When he knocks on the door, he is greeted by a little Indian girl with grey eyes and black hair, who when asked where her mother is, runs back inside calling for 'Mummy', before running back to the door a few minutes later, her mother in tow. Régine gently disengages her hand from her daughter's, telling her daughter to go inside and play with her little brother, watching her run off eagerly, before turning to her visitor and letting out a little gasp of surprise as she realizes her cousin has paid her a visit for the first time since she ran away from home. Antares sees the years have been somewhat kind to Régine, as she still looks as pretty as she did at seventeen, but with a world weary expression, as if she's seen too much death. She motions him inside and gestures for him to sit on one of her couches, before she asks him why he suddenly came to visit her after several years of no contact. When he tells Rgine that her sister's dead and asks her if she'd like to attend to Cassia's funeral, she initially doesn't respond as all the color drains from her face, but she regains her composure after a few minutes and tells him in no uncertain terms that she'll attend the funeral, not for him and the rest of their gods-damned family, but for the memory of her sister.

The funeral is a somber affair held on a rainy day, as if the sky itself is crying over the loss of the Black heiress. Régine shows up with her two children and her husband to pay her respects to her dead sister as she told Antares she would (Bell never shows up). When she goes up to the open casket and looks at the peaceful face of her dead sister, she breaks down into hysterical tears, prompting her husband to come and rub her back and murmur something into her ear before leading her and their children back home. Narcissus leaves next, followed by his wife, daughter and the few purebloods that had deigned to gather for the funeral, leaving Antares to get drenched while staring at the coffin, wondering when everything had gone wrong.

A/N: I'd like someone to beta this story, so if you're interested, send me a PM.


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